1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates broadly to systems and methods for unified messaging involving a voice-mail system and an e-mail system.
2. Background of the Invention
Effective communication between persons continues to be important to both businesses and private individuals. Two types of communication are in common use. The first type of communication is the long established telephone, which uses the public telephone system or other wiring system in conjunction with a telephone set. The second type of communication in common use today is e-mail.
A document characterized as an electronic mail, i.e., an e-mail or e-mail message, is created by a user on a personal computer, for example, and forwarded across a data network to the recipient. The recipient retrieves the e-mail using a suitable service provider and may then view the received e-mail at some later time.
Alternatively, voice-mail systems allow callers, both internal and external to a particular establishment, to leave voice recordings of memoranda or short messages that can be accessed at a later time by a recipient. Each telephone set associated with a voice-mail system will have a designated message location, known commonly as a xe2x80x9cvoice mailbox.xe2x80x9d If a caller accesses a voice mailbox associated with a given telephone set, a voice recording may be stored for selective retrieval by user at a later time. This process of using the telephone may be characterized as voice messaging.
E-mail messaging and voice-mail messaging operate in distinct environments using different technologies. The distinctness of the environments have been a result of the nature of the technology, the vendors involved who distribute and promote the technology, and the types of services traditionally offered by each of e-mail messaging and voice-mail messaging, using the telephone.
The concept of xe2x80x9cunified messagingxe2x80x9d is to create an operating environment in which the user believes that he or she is dealing with a single environment, as opposed to the traditional two environments of voice-mail and e-mail.
There are various known systems directed at unified messaging systems. Illustratively, U.S. Pat. No. 5,717,742 (hereinafter the 742 patent) to Hyde-Thomson discloses an electronic mail system having integrated voice messages. The 742 patent discloses a system in which a voice message is converted into a digital voice file, which is stored in the shared memory device corresponding to the intended recipient""s mailbox. Thereby, one mailbox can contain both voice and text messages. The 742 patent further discloses that the same message handling mechanism is used for handling both voice and text messages.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,647,002 to Brunson (hereinafter the 002 patent) discloses a system in which synchronization of mailboxes of different types is performed. The 002 patent teaches that one messaging system may be an e-mail system and the other messaging system may be a voice-mail system. The synchronization enables the mailbox user/owner to depend on either system to notify him or her of the arrival of any message in both systems. The 002 patent further discloses that the user may retrieve all messages from either system and do so in an identical manner, or may retrieve some messages from one system and other messages from the other system irrespective of which system the message originated on. The user may also determine the correct status of all messages from examining the system. The 002 patent describes that a scanning process is performed to analyze the contents of the mailbox. Illustratively, the 002 patent describes that a processor checks the contents of message ID fields, of all entries of a table, against stored information to see if any message IDs that appear in the table do not appear in the mailbox.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,266 to Boaz et al. (hereinafter the 266 patent) discloses a method and apparatus for message handling in computer systems. The 266 patent teaches an integrated messaging system (IMS) which integrates mail from a plurality of mail servers handling messages of different media types such as text, voice, facsimile, video and image. The IMS maintains the in-basket for all mail systems, eliminating the need to collect each type of mail separately. The 266 patent further discloses that the IMS also includes synchronization means which checks to see whether the mail count in each in-basket is the same to guarantee that the same mail items are in each file server in-basket. The 266 patent describes that the IMS comprises a plurality of file servers each coupled to a plurality of workstations. Each file server includes a message store for the messages of the media type which it handles, as well as a message pointer store which serves as an in-basket. Accordingly, the 266 patent relies on the use of pointers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,798 to Cohen et al. (hereinafter the 798 patent) discloses a communication system having unified messaging. The 798 patent describes that unified messaging is a concept that provides for a single electronic mailbox for different types of messages. The mailbox can be on a user""s host computer, PBX, PC, etc., and the user has consistent facilities available to originate, receive and manipulate messages. The 798 patent discloses that messages can be translated from one media to another for reception, and a single message may be composed of parts that use different native media. The 798 patent further describes that the message recipient has a single controllable point of contact where all messages can be scanned and/or viewed. The 798 patent teaches that, for example, if a user has a voice-mail service associated with a telephone station set and a data mail service available with a terminal (or PC), that user may specify either service as the recipient service. Thus, when the message arrives at either service, the notification of the arrival of the message is given only in the recipient service.
However, there are various problems associated with the known unified messaging systems. Illustratively, the known systems do not provide the capabilities necessary for today""s mobile worker. For example, the known unified messaging systems do not provide message replication, i.e., message duplication, and message synchronization that is independent of the location of the in-basket such that the unified messaging system performs in an enhanced manner. Further, the known unified messaging systems do not provide replication and synchronization of messages using an incremental process to identify newly changed or added messages, as opposed to performing an operation that re-scans all messages. Accordingly, the present invention addresses these and other shortcomings of the conventional systems.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a unified messaging system and method that provides an e-mail system and a voice-mail system without sacrifices to either of the systems.
It is another object of the invention to provide a unified messaging system that provides on-going synchronization while the e-mail system and a voice-mail system are in communication with each other and a post-login synchronization subsequent to the e-mail system and the voice-mail system re-gaining communication with each other.
It is another object of the invention to provide a unified messaging system and method that provides enhanced access of both e-mail messages and voice-mail messages by utilizing replication of the messages.
It is another object of the invention to provide a unified messaging system and method that provides enhanced synchronization between an e-mail message store and a voice-mail message store.
It is another object of the invention to provide a unified messaging system and method that attempts to provide a user with similar capabilities with respect to message manipulation regardless of whether the user is operating as a workstation client or a telephone client.
It is another object of the invention to provide a unified messaging system and method that provides a telephone client the ability to retrieve e-mail messages using text-to-speech technology.
In accordance with the system and method of the invention, a unified messaging system is provided that includes two-way synchronization and replication of messages. The unified messaging system includes a workstation, a voice-mail server, and an e-mail server. The workstation may be a personal computer, for example. The workstation includes an agent to monitor the operations of messaging activity in the workstation in accordance with the invention. Also, the voice-mail server includes a proxy e-mail client (PEC), i.e., a proxy e-mail receiver, to operate in the absence of the workstation.
More specifically, the agent monitors all status changes to messages stored in the workstation mailbox in the workstation. When a status change occurs in the workstation mailbox, such as a deleted or added message, the agent notifies the voice-mail server. Based on this notification, the voice-mail server synchronizes the messages stored in the voice-mail message store.
The voice-mail server monitors all status changes to messages stored in the voice-mail message store in the voice-mail server. When a status change occurs in the voice-mail message store, such as a deleted or added message, the voice-mail server notifies the agent. Based on this notification, the agent synchronizes the messages stored in the workstation mailbox. When the voice-mail server is not in communication with the agent, the voice-mail server may obtain e-mail messages using the proxy e-mail client (PEC). However, whenever the voice-mail server is in communication with the agent, the proxy e-mail client is inactive.
The unified messaging system in accordance with the invention performs xe2x80x9con-going synchronizationxe2x80x9d when the agent and the voice-mail server are in communication with each other. Specifically, in on-going synchronization, the agent informs the voice-mail server as soon as a status change occurs in the workstation mailbox. Further, in on-going synchronization, the voice-mail server informs the agent as soon as a status change occurs in the voice-mail message store.
Alternatively to xe2x80x9con-going synchronization,xe2x80x9d the unified messaging system in accordance with the invention performs xe2x80x9cpost-login synchronizationxe2x80x9d subsequent to the agent and the voice-mail server regaining communication with each other, subsequent to not being in communication. In post-login synchronization, each of the agent and the voice-mail server informs the other regarding message status changes during the period of non-communication.
As used herein, the term xe2x80x9cworkstationxe2x80x9d is intended to encompass any of a wide variety of processing systems or personal computers including a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, or any other type of desktop computer. Further, as used herein, a xe2x80x9cworkstation clientxe2x80x9d is defined as a user of a workstation who utilizes an e-mail application such as Microsoft OUTLOOK(copyright). The workstation client may be located on a LAN, be a Remote Access Service (RAS) client, or be a wireless user, for example. Further, a xe2x80x9ctelephone clientxe2x80x9d is defined as a user of a telephone set. The telephone client may be located on a PSTN or located directly on a PBX. As described herein, the xe2x80x9cunified messaging system is fully operating on the networkxe2x80x9d if each of the workstation including all of its messaging components, the voice-mail server, and the e-mail server are connected to each other and operating in communication with each other.
In accordance with the system and method of the invention, two-way synchronization Is and replication is provided. The two-way synchronization and replication operates between the workstation and the voice-mail server. Specifically, the replication operates between the e-mail store, e.g., the mailbox, of the workstation and the voice-mail store of the voice-mail server. The replication duplicates messages in each of the mailbox of the workstation and the voice-mail database of the voice-mail server. Thus, the voice-mail store contains both the voice-mail and the e-mail. Further, the e-mail store contains both the e-mail and the voice-mail.
Accordingly, the unified messaging system of the invention unifies two distinct systems, i.e., a voice-mail system and an e-mail system. Further, the unified messaging system of the invention unifies the respective stores of an e-mail system and a voice-mail system.
Accordingly, the system and method of the invention provides various advantages. For example, a computer laptop user may take the laptop on a trip. It is common for e-mail to be stored on the laptop once the laptop is disconnected from the network. However, in accordance with the system and method of the invention, the voice-mail may additionally be stored on the laptop. Accordingly, the voice-mail is also accessible to the user in a stand-alone mode. This is a further accessibility advantage.
The unified messaging in accordance with the invention provides various other advantages as a result of the replication of messages. The invention provides the ability to access voice-mail and e-mail from the telephone regardless of whether the workstation, i.e., the workstation client, or the e-mail server, is operating. The invention also provides the ability to access voice-mail and e-mail from the workstation regardless of whether the voice-mail system is operating. Thus, a user will have access to e-mail and voice-mail twenty-four hours a day, from either the workstation or the telephone, regardless of what is happening on the network.
Accordingly, replication is performed in accordance with the invention to provide enhanced accessibility. As a result of the replication performed, it is necessary to synchronize the duplicated messages. That is, whatever happens to a message on either the voice-mail end or the e-mail end has to be notified to the other end. For example, a user may delete a voice-mail while operating his laptop on a plane. Once the user reconnects to the voice-mail system, the voice-mail system necessarily needs to know that the message was deleted. Otherwise, the voice-mail system may treat the message as a new message. This is merely one example of the synchronization operations performed by the system and method of the invention.
The synchronization perform by the unified messaging system of the invention may be characterized as xe2x80x9ctwo-way synchronizationxe2x80x9d because it is really a bilateral process performed between the two respective data stores of the voice-mail system and the e-mail system. Either end has to tell the other end what the other has done, hence two way.
Another advantage provided by the system and method of the invention is the non-requirement of a message being in a certain location. Specifically, an e-mail user may use an arrangement in which the e-mail messages are maintained on a personal store in the user""s workstation, for example. Alternatively, other users may store the e-mail on the server. The distinction between these two arrangements is whether the e-mail messages are on the hard drive of the workstation or not. However, the unified messaging system of the invention may operate regardless of whether the e-mail is in a personal store in a user""s workstation or maintained on the server.
Further, the system and method of the invention provide unified messaging while preserving existing voice-mail architecture and existing e-mail architecture. Further, the system and method of the invention maintains how the conventional voice-mail is linked to and interacts with the different switches in the world including private branch exchange (PBX) switches.
It should be recognized that there are a wide variety of e-mail systems available on the market presently and more being developed for the future. A number of these competing e-mail systems are not compatible with each other. The system and method of the invention provide a unified messaging system which may work in conjunction with a wide variety of e-mail systems.
In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, a unified messaging system provides access to e-mail messages and voice-mail messages. The unified messaging system comprises a workstation that interfaces with a user. The workstation includes an agent responsible for e-mail message replication and synchronization of both e-mail and voice-mail messages; a voice-mail service provider responsible for voice-mail message replication and sending voice-mail messages; an e-mail service provider for retrieving and sending e-mail messages; a messaging sub-system for supporting the voice-mail service provider and the e-mail service provider, and a workstation mailbox for storing messages, said agent monitoring message activity in the workstation mailbox. The message system also includes a voice-mail server that sends and receives voice-mail messages, the voice-mail server comprising a voice-mail message store for storing messages, the voice-mail server responsible for voice-mail message and e-mail message replication and synchronization of both e-mail messages and voice-mail messages in concert with the agent. Further, the messaging system includes a communication system variably connecting each of the workstation, the voice-mail server, and the e-mail server with each other.